Time to Outlaw Storming the Court

College kids look forward to the moment when their team — usually a basketball team — does something big. A dramatic win, rivalry victory, huge upset or a championship. When the red lights glow, the stampede crashes down. A tide of people engulf the hardwood. The fans have stormed the court.

This needs to stop, and it needs to stop now.

Arizona coach Sean Miller said eventually some player — he even specified it by saying an Arizona player — is going to punch a fan out of self-defense. And he’s right, one day something bad is going to happen. One day some stupid, crazy fan is going to do something to either instigate or attack an opposing athlete. And when that athlete reacts, everybody will realize what a dumb idea storming the court is.

All the people who say storming the court is a tradition are misguided however, because I enjoyed plenty of great basketball without ever partaking.

I went to a Division III school with an elite basketball program. The College of Wooster men’s basketball team won four regular season conference titles, hosting the NCAC Tournament all four years and winning it once, and made four trips to the NCAA Tournament, including a trip to the Final Four during my time at the school from 2005-08. I attended every game save for a handful — including all the major ones — but despite all that success I never got to storm the court.

We simply weren’t allowed to after my freshman year. We were not happy because in 2005 our hated rival Wittenberg upset us in the NCAC finals and their fans stormed our court. In 2006, when ranked No. 2 Wooster beat No. 1 Wittenberg on the road in the first-ever showdown between the two top ranked teams in the D3hoops.com national poll, Scots fans were not allowed to return the favor.

It didn’t taint the experience in the least.

Fan is an abbreviation for “fanatic,” which is defined as “a person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal, especially for an extreme religious or political cause.” Webster might want to add “sports” to that definition, because sports fans are obsessive, passionate and loyal — which is both a good and a bad thing. Most are harmless, even the loud ones, but every fan base has a segment of crazies. And letting the crazies onto the court, so close to the athletes they’ve built up an obsession over, is not a good idea.

It’s going to end badly someday very soon, and when it does everyone will collectively wonder why this tradition was allowed at all.

It won’t take much either, a nasty comment, a hateful shove, a fan that sees a player he’s despised for years finally has a chance to take out all that pent up frustration and gives him a shove. Any one of those not-so-hard to envision scenarios could pop up while on the court with the opposing team. And an athlete in the immediate aftermath of defeat is anything but thinking straight. I’m honestly shocked a scene hasn’t happened yet.

Give it time, and eventually something awful is going to go down. In this day and age of social media, everyone is going to see it. Sadly, regardless of what the fan did the athlete is likely going to take a hard fall for the reaction — maybe even lose a scholarship and the opportunity to continue playing. All because some crazy fan started something, poked, prodded, crossed the line. All because of some stupid tradition that adds absolutely zero to the college sports experience.

Wooster may play in Division III, but it has the highest winning percentage of any team across all NCAA divisions at 410-76 — that’s 84.4 percent. If you want to find an absolute gem of a rivalry, and a darn good time for less than $10, go to a Wooster/Wittenberg basketball game. Many outsiders have told me it’s a Division I environment, and the games are usually close with the conference on the line.

I went to seven of them in my four seasons there, even the losses were fantastic experiences. Not to mention countless other NCAA Tournament games, including five of Wooster’s six during its run to the Final Four in 2007 — including two home wins to start the run and a thrilling Elite Eight victory up near Rochester, N.Y. Wooster gave me plenty of chances.

But guess what? I had just as much fun cheering for my team and experiencing great memories without ever once storming the court. For once let’s prevent an obvious danger before some crazy fan does something stupid. Or the unthinkable.